Duct Tape Made Even Better?

No self respecting “home handyman” does not have duct tape in his tool box. Today, it not only comes in “battleship” gray, but a variety of colors that your wife is a lot less likely to complain about if the duct tape patching the garden house at least matches the hose color. It doesn’t get any better for all of us “home repair warriors” than to be able to color coordinate our handiwork to better hide what we are either too lazy to repair correctly, or lack the knowledge to repair the right way and don’t want to admit it.

While I didn’t think it possible that anything could top the invention of color coordinated duct tape, along comes the 3M company to prove me wrong by bringing a transparent, stronger than ever version to the market that is said to be up to six times longer than classic versions of duct tape.

I haven’t actually owned a roll long enough to verify just how long the tape will actually last, nor after thinking about am able to really calculate a normal amount of time that a repair duct tape has been used for should last to estimate six times longer, but I don’t care, I now have a clear version to experiment with, and it works!

For starters, this version seems to be stickier, but easier to cut, maneuver and work with. I used it for a garden hose leak and I’m sure you know from experience if you have patched a hose leak with duct tape that that first “wrap” is critical to the repair because it must be tight and firm against the hose to prevent leakage.

With the new 3M transparent tape, I found that I only had to pull straight out about 2-3 inches of extra tape, wrap it firmly around once, and it attached itself to that garden hose like a brand new pair of tube socks does to your feet. After a few quick “smoothings” with my free hand, I then wrapped the repair just once each way, left and right, over the spot for a total of just three total wrappings and the leak was totally stopped. Best of all the tape really is transparent to the point that if you don’t get any oil from your skin on the sticky part of the tape, you would hard pressed to spot the tape on the hose if it is wrapped tightly enough. Oh yeah, and if you do get oil from your fingers on the sticky part of the tape, it doesn’t seem to hamper the effectiveness of the tape one bit.

I have also done a few experiments to see if this version of easily the best “tool in the tool box” leaves those annoying “sticky tracks” on the surface of where it has been used, and I have to tell you, after trying it on rubber, metal, plastic and vinyl I have not yet come across a surface where it leaves the sticky gummy residue that to date has been the only drawback to using duct tape at all.

Do yourself a favor, hit your favorite hardware store, c’mon, we all know you have one where they know you by name and add a roll of 3M Transparent Duct Tape to your tool box today, you won’t be sorry you did.